Item 92

It's been a long time but there's still work to be done on SCO's stupid sealed allegations. So without further ado, here's a new one I just found -- Item 92.

SCO's own description of this item is "Information that IBM contributed Dynix/PTX code to Linux from "michael,"
who appears to be a former Sequent employee. Possibly M. Anderson." (we learnt this from Exhibit C of the Rebuttal Declaration of Randall Davis).

At the hearing on October 24th 2006, Mr Marriott said:

The argument seems to be that IBM can figure out for itself what it did because, again, it did it, so nobody knows better than IBM.

"And, by the way," SCO says, "we've given them a whole bunch of stuff, and it's enough stuff for them to generally figure out what we're talking about, and if they haven't figured it out, they can go and get their developers to sit down in a room and talk to them about it, and they will tell IBM what they actually did."

In the spirit of giving Your Honor a flavor for SCO's allegations, this is item 92. It says that IBM contributed Dynix/ptx code to Linux from Michael, who appears to be a former Sequent employee. So the allegation -- what we're told in this final set of final disclosures, which SCO argues has all the specificity required by Magistrate Judge Wells, all the specificity that could reasonably be required, all that IBM needs to defend itself, we're told what we were told in the Complaint. IBM took code from Dynix and it put it into Linux.

Now look, if you would, Your Honor, at the next page. Much of SCO's argument is: Judge, we have given them the actual disclosures. What do they want from us? They have been handed the documents.

This is one of the documents we have been handed, not unique among the particularity provided: An anonymous posting somewhere on the internet by a person purported to be called Michael, purported to have been a former employee of IBM saying that Sequent didn't get into the business of contributing Dynix/ptx code to Linux, IBM did. That's it.

Now, contrast that, Your Honor, with the scope -- look at tab 24, if you would, of the book. Again, to end where I began. The scope of code implicated by SCO's claims is substantial. Millions of files. Billions of lines of code. And IBM is told: Your guys did it. Figure it out for yourself. SCO declined to provide version, file and line information. That is undisputed. And the table laid out in this book, I think, makes that clear.

It is simply not possible, contrary to Mr. Singer's suggestion, for IBM to simply figure out for itself what is at issue. The haystack is enormous, and while we could in theory search the haystack of this code for the allegedly misused information, the real problem here, Your Honor, is that the needles that we have been sent to find are undefined needles, as defined in item 92 of SCO's final disclosures.

The trick is to pick out a phrase that might have come from the original, and search for it. In this case, it's "Sequent didn't get into the business of contributing Dynix/ptx code to
Linux". And so that brings us to --

SCO said that besides IBM, Sequent has
contributed code to Linux which is derived from Unix. Sequent is now a
subsidiary of IBM.

Sequent did not get into the business of contributing our Dynix/PTX
code to Linux. IBM did that when they bought us.BTW, Sequent is NOT a
subsidiary of IBM, we were purchased and the name subsequently thrown
away (along with our culture, people, and products).

-michael

There it is! Item 92 in its complete full frontal unredacted glory! Wow! Kinda makes you ask why SCO would keep these undefined needles sealed, huh?

We're always fair and balanced, here at IV-SCOXQ.PK, so, speaking up for SCO just a few minutes later in the same hearing here is Mr Singer with this snappy comeback:

Perhaps the example, tab 92, which is raised by Mr. Marriott the first time here -- it hasn't been raised below. It hasn't been raised in briefing. This is the first time that example comes up -- if that one is too general, it should be excluded, but you don't throw out all these parts of our case.

This whine is brought to you by Boies, Schiller and Flexner -- proud to proclaim that Quality Assurance is the other guy's job.